Sargis bar Waḥle (ca. 1500) [Ch. of E.]

Monk and poet. Sargis bar Waḥle from Adharbayjān, was a monk in the Monastery of Rabban Hormizd near Alqosh, possibly
around the turn of the 15th–16th cent. He wrote a lengthy metrical poem on
the founder of this monastery, Rabban Hormizd, consisting of 22 tarʿe (strophes), according to the letters of the
Syriac alphabet, set in end rhyme and intended to be recited on the occasion
of the saint’s dukrānā. Its language is artificial
and characterized by the extensive use of rare words and Greek loan words. A
metrical poem on Mar Aḥa, which existed in ms. (olim) Diyarbakır 76, is said
to have been written in a more natural style (Scher). Abūna’s and Macuch’s
assumption that Sargis is also the author of ʿonyāthā on the
E.-Syr. Catholicoi as well as on Rabban Khudahwi and Sabrishoʿ of Beth Qoqa
is based on an erroneous interpretation of the passage on Sargis in
Baumstark’s Geschichte der syrischen Literatur.

Primary Sources

E. A. W. Budge, The Life of Rabban Hôrmîzd
and the foundation of his Monastery at al-Ḳôsh. A metrical
discourse by Waḥlê, surnamed Sergius of Âdhôrbâijân
(Semitistische Studien. Ergänzungshefte zur ZA 2–3; 1894).
(Syr.)

E. A. W. Budge, ‘The metrical homily on the Life of Rabban Hôrmîzd the
Persian composed by Sergius of Âdhôrbâijân’, in his The Histories of Rabban Hormizd the Persian and
Rabban Bar-ʿIdtâ, vol. 2.2 (1902). (ET)